All birds that continue in full song till after Midsummer appear to me to breed more than once.

Most kinds of birds seem to me to be wild and shy somewhat in proportion to their bulk; I mean in this island, where they are much pursued and annoyed: but in Ascension Island, and many other desolate places, mariners have found fowls so unacquainted with a human figure, that they would stand still to be taken; as is the case with boobies, &c. As an example of what is advanced, I remark that the golden crested wren (the smallest British bird) will stand unconcerned till you come within three or four yards of it, while the bustard (Otis), the largest British land fowl, does not care to admit a person within so many furlongs1.

The bustard is extinct in Scotland; and as it is now so scarce in England, owing to population and enclosures, it becomes interesting to

LETTER III.

TO THE SAME.

DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, Jan. 15, 1770. IT was no small matter of satisfaction to me to find that you were not displeased with my little Methodus of birds. If there was any merit in the sketch, it must be owing to its punctuality. For many months I carried a list in my pocket of the birds that were to be remarked, and, as I rode or walked about my business, I noted each day the continuance or omission of each bird's song; so that I am as sure of the certainty of my facts as a man can be of any transaction whatsoever.

I shall now proceed to answer the several queries which you put in your two obliging letters, in the best manner that I am able. Perhaps Eastwick, and its environs, where you heard so very few birds, is not a woodland country, and therefore not stocked with such songsters. If you will cast your eye on my last letter, you will find that many species continued to warble after the beginning of July.

The titlark and yellowhammer breed late, the latter very late; and therefore it is no wonder that they protract their song: for I lay it down as a maxim in ornithology, that as long as there is any incubation going on there is music. As to the redbreast and wren, it is well known to the most incurious observer that they

remark, that two birds of this kind (male and female) have been kept in the garden ground belonging to the Norwich Infirmary, and have but lately been sold by the owner of them. The male bird was very beautiful and courageous, apparently afraid of nothing, seizing any one that came near him by the coat; yet on the appearance of any small hawk, high in the air, he would squat close to the ground expressing strong marks of fear. The female was very shy. A tolerably good resemblance of the male is in Pennant's British Zoology, vol i. p. 281.—MITFORD.

whistle the year round, hard frost excepted; especially the latter.

It was not in my power to procure you a blackcap, or a less reed-sparrow, or sedge bird, alive. As the first is undoubtedly, and the last, as far as I can yet see, a summer bird of passage, they would require more nice and curious management in a cage than I should be able to give them': they are both distinguished songsters. The note of the former has such a wild sweetness that it always brings to my mind those lines in a song in "As You Like It."

"And tune his merry note

Unto the wild bird's throat."
SHAKSPEARE.

The latter has a surprising variety of notes resembling the song of several other birds; but then it has

[In the preceding edition several Notes by the late Mr. Sweet, introduced in various parts of the volume, were principally directed to the supplying of information on the habits in confinement of many of the more delicate birds, and on the care and treatment necessary for them in captivity: the success of that well-known horticulturist in preserving these interesting creatures has never been exceeded. His observations bring many of them before us under circumstances in which they were not studied by Gilbert White, and convey to us, in consequence, additional knowledge respecting them: while to those who may be desirous of retaining in captivity any of these sweetest of songsters, it will be advantageous to be made acquainted with the plan which he pursued with respect to those that were from time to time under his care. His Notes are here subjoined in a single series; preceded by his general observations on the]

FOOD OF SOFT-BILLED BIRDS (Sylviada ).—The birds of this sort, though the finest songsters and most interesting of all the feathered tribe, have been less known or noticed than others, probably owing to the greater number only visiting us in summer, when the trees are so densely clothed with foliage, that birds are not easily seen, and when heard sing, are generally considered by those who hear them, to be either blackbirds or thrushes, or some of the more common singing birds. When they are seen the greater number of them receive the general appellation of whitethroats without distinction, though this is rather singular, since they are all very distinct when examined, and their songs are all very different. If you speak to a bird-fancier or bird-catcher about any of them, you might as well talk of a bird in the wilds of America, for they know nothing of them. Many of them are therefore difficult to be procured in the neighbourhood of London, though most of them are plentiful there.

With care, the whole of them may be preserved in good health through the year, and many of them will sing through the greater part of the

also a hurrying manner, not at all to its advantage: it is notwithstanding a delicate polyglot.

winter, if properly managed. They require to be kept warm: the room in which they are should never be allowed to be below temperate, or they will suffer from it, particularly the tender sorts; at first, the cold will make them lose their sight, after which they seldom recover. The redstart and nightingale are most subject to this; it sometimes also happens to the greater pettychaps or garden warbler, and also to the whin chat.

When in a wild state, the birds of this sort feed principally on insects, or fruit and berries of various kinds. None of them are seed birds, so that they must be managed accordingly. The general food which I give them is hempseed bruised up in boiling water, as small as it can be made. I then put to this about the same quantity, or rather more, of bread, on which is also poured boiling water; and then the whole is bruised up together into a moist paste, particular care being required that there be little or no salt in the bread, for should there be rather much, it will kill the whole of the birds. The food should also be mixed up fresh every morning, as it soon spoils and turns sour, in which case the birds will not touch it, and sometimes it will make them go off their food altogether. When given to the birds, some fresh, raw, lean meat ought to be cut up small enough for them to swallow, and mixed with it. I generally put about the same quantity of meat as paste, and sometimes they will peck out the meat and leave the paste; at other times they will eat the paste and leave the meat; but in general they eat it all up together, particularly where several different species are kept together in the same large cage; a plan which I consider by far the best, as they amuse each other, and keep one another warm in cold weather. Besides the above food, an egg should be boiled very hard, the yolk taken out and crumbled or cut in small pieces for them: the white they will not eat. One egg I consider enough for twenty birds for one day, with their other food, it being only intended as a change of diet, without which they will not continue well in health.

Some of the sorts which feed on insects when wild should have some of these preserved for them through the winter, except where they can be procured at all seasons. At a baker's shop, for instance, there are always plenty of mealworms, crickets, and cockroaches, of which most of these birds are very fond. When those are not to be procured, a good substitute is the large white caterpillar that produces the cockchafer, which in some years is very plentiful, and may be kept in pots of turfy earth through the winter; as may also the maggots of the blue bottle fly, if procured late in autumn; and they may be generally had as late as December. A quantity of these kept in a pot of turfy earth in a cellar or any other cool place, where they may not turn into flies too soon, is I think one of the best sorts of insects, and easiest kept and procured, for such birds through the winter. They will not touch them until they are well cleaned in the mould, but are then very fond of them, and a few every day keeps them in excellent health, and provokes them to sing.

The Nightingale, (Philomela Luscinia, SWAINS.)-One of the finest songsters of the feathered race, generally visiting us, about London, the be

It is new to me that titlarks in cages sing in the night; perhaps only caged birds do so. I once knew a ginning of April; in Somersetshire it seldom arrives till the middle or latter end of that month, and sometimes not till the beginning of May: Devonshire, and Cornwall, and some other counties, it does not visit at all it generally leaves us again the beginning of September. Its song, when wild, is very fine, but lasts but a few weeks: to have it in the greatest perfection is, to have a good bird in a cage, where, if it be a very kindly one, it will begin singing the beginning of December, and continue till June. I had a very fine one that only left off singing the latter end of June last; it began again a little in September, and on the 1st of December it was in full song, and continued to sing through the whole of the month, and nearly all day long, as fine as if at Midsummer, and would have continued on had not the frost set in so severe: when singing in a cage none of the soft notes are lost; they are all heard quite clear, which is not the case when heard in the woods or hedges.

The best way to be certain of a good nightingale is to get one that is just caught in spring; for there is no dependance on a young one bred up from the nest, or a young brancher, except it be kept with a good old bird, to learn its proper notes from; a young one being apt to catch all it hears, good or bad, and to be deficient of many of its natural ones. I had one three years, and it never sang worth any thing: the year before last I turned it out, and it continued in the gardens round the house until it left the country in autumn; it returned back to the same place last spring, where I recognised it by its bad song, and it continued about the same place all the summer, and bred up a nest of young ones. A female that I had also been keeping for six years, to see if she would breed, I also turned out with him, but whether she came back and was partner in the nest, I cannot say, as I had no mark to know her by: this female I kept four years, and it never attempted to sing; the fifth year it sang frequently, a pretty soft nightingale's note. I have found that the case with several female birds, they do not sing till they become aged; but it is not a rule universally applicable, as I have had a female willow wren that sang when quite young.

I treat my nightingales in exactly the same manner as is before mentioned, which is at variance with the bird-fanciers' method, who feed them on grated beef and egg, and German paste; but I have never heard of any being kept many years on that food: the German paste I do not approve at all, as the maw-seeds, honey, sugar, and such out of the way ingredients, I am convinced must be very injurious to their health. The best thing to keep them in good health and spirits is, to give them as much insect food as possible, and there are scarcely any insects they will refuse except hairy caterpillars: they are particularly fond of ants and their eggs, for which they will leave any other food; they are also very partial to all sorts of smooth caterpillars, earwigs, crickets, grasshoppers, cockroaches, common maggots, and meal-worms: but there is nothing that all the birds of this tribe are so fond of, as the young larvæ in the combs of wasps and hornets; they will even eat them after they become winged. I have, when a boy, kept nightingales, blackcaps, the greater pettychaps, and whitethroats, for two months at a time on nothing else.